Linux News: Customer Loyalty

Can T-Mobile Get Its Groove Back?
November 18, 2009

This fall has not been kind to T-Mobile. First, it had to account for mountains of lost data that Sidekick customers had stored. Then there was the nationwide service outage for millions of U.S. T-Mobile customers a few weeks ago. Now, it looks as though employees at T-Mobile UK have been selling competitors the names of customers whose T-Mobile contracts were about to expire.

8 Habits of Successful Customer Feedback Managers
November 05, 2009

Customer relationships are damaged when companies hear too late about customer concerns or issues to do anything to repair them. Even worse, many crucial concerns aren't being heard by the right people at an organization. For example, are managers aware of which customers are unhappy? Did an employee treat a customer unfairly? What are the specific factors that caused a customer to leave?

CRM + BPM: Raising the Customer Experience Bar
October 16, 2009

For decades, organizations have been dealing with the challenges of driving more effective customer service. Traditional CRM solutions have focused on presenting consolidated customer information, but they still rely heavily on employees to resolve customer issues. This means that the customer's experience can vary greatly depending on the manual processes and efficiency of the staff at any given organization.

Social Sites New Conduits for Customer Service
October 13, 2009

A Seattle woman tweets from an airport that JetBlue's birthday present to her was forgetting to put her wheelchair on her flight. Seven minutes later, an airline official tweets back that the crew will work quickly to make things right. On a Facebook page used by Delta Air Lines, a traveler suggests Delta wrap its WiFi fee into its ticket price rather than charge separately. The airline doesn't respond.

Employee-Customer-Employee: Closing the Feedback Loop
October 09, 2009

Organizations with the most loyal customers not only measure and monitor employee interactions with customers, but also share that feedback with employees. This creates a closed-feedback loop that allows customer-facing staff members to understand the impact of their interactions on customers, enabling them to improve those interactions over time.

For Digital Marketing Startup Edo, Success Is in the Facecards
September 23, 2009

If you ask Edo Interactive CEO Ed Braswell the classic Facebook status update question -- "What are you doing?" -- he's liable to answer that he's providing a new spending avenue for consumers, along with a mother lode of digital marketing information for retailers.

Taking Customer Loyalty to the Next Level
September 18, 2009

Today, loyalty programs come in all shapes and sizes, and they give retailers, financial institutions and hotels opportunities to reward their best customers like never before. There are many benefits to offering a loyalty program that is tailored to your customers. However, there can be risks, too.

E-Commerce Innovations - What's Now and What's Next
September 14, 2009

Just as the evolution of the speed-skating boot set new standards for the sport, innovation in today's constantly evolving e-commerce landscape has worked as a catalyst to move it forward. E-commerce practitioners from all industries need to be ready to step up and embrace innovation as a means of staying ahead of the game.

CRM in 2009: Personal, Social, Mobile, Adaptable
September 14, 2009

Making sure that every customer gets the personal touch may be fairly easy for the owner of a neighborhood bakery, but in a mass market of millions, making each customer feel like an individual is a formidable challenge. In the information age, tools like customer relationship management software make it possible for companies to apply a personal touch to the mass market -- and that's golden.

The E-Coupon Generation
September 01, 2009

Electronic coupons, arriving by cellphone, Twitter, e-mail and Facebook, are helping generate an old standby's comeback and bringing in new, younger customers. Many shoppers, especially young consumers like 30-year-old April Englebert, used to reject coupons printed in newspapers and direct-mail booklets as passe or cumbersome.

If You Build a Branded Online Community, Will Customers Come?
August 06, 2009

One of the key benefits of branded online communities relates to the idea of treating customers as cocreators or codevelopers. With the advent of social networking, companies can further automate and expand their efforts to involve customers in the innovation process. For most companies, innovation is the only sustainable competitive advantage.

Don't Trade Customer Satisfaction for Call Center Efficiency
July 24, 2009

Increasing contact center efficiency has always been a clear path to cutting costs, regardless of economic conditions. Increasing productivity and doing more with existing resources are now more important than ever, but cutting call center costs does not have to result in poorer customer service.

How to Earn Your Customers' Loyalty
July 16, 2009

There's a saying in the business world: Customer acquisition is an investment, but customer retention delivers profitability. So, how do you retain your customers and earn their loyalty? It's like any successful relationship: If you want customers to be loyal to you, you must be loyal to them and demonstrate that loyalty.

Safeguarding the Crown Jewels With Online Brand Monitoring
June 11, 2009

The most valuable asset of a company is its good name. Yet the rapid growth of the Internet and the explosion of social media, in particular, have made it infinitely more challenging for a company to protect its good name. Recent examples abound of how, owing to the viral effect of social media, ordinary people now wield the power to do untold harm to a brand.

Surviving the Downturn Through Social Marketing
June 09, 2009

Social marketing offers a new way to interact with consumers, but aside from being another channel, it requires a different mindset to achieve results. This is Web 2.0, where the consumer is in charge of the message and will angrily resist big brand pressure and broadcast marketing. Content needs to have merit to thrive in the social space, so cheesy slogans are out.

EMC World 2009 - Traveling the Cloud's Byways
June 02, 2009

The recession's effects on technology budgets, corporate belt-tightening and simple business survival have been well-documented, but less attention has been paid to how IT industry client and developer conferences can help end customers stabilize or even improve their situations. Make no mistake -- the economy is affecting attendance and participation at 2009 events.